March 3, 2005
Founding Fathers Were Deists, Not Christians
By Floyd Johnson
Many on the Christian right assert, even insist, that our founding fathers were Christians and that are country was founded on Christian tenets. This is simply not true. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and many other founders were "deists", not Christians. Deists believe that there is a God, a creator, but do not accept Christianity or any other orthodox church. In truth, many were extremely critical of orthodox Christianity.
George Washington stated, "The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."
Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr (August 10, 1787), "Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." In a letter to John Adams (April 11, 1823), Jefferson wrote, "One day the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States will tear down the artificial scaffolding of Christianity. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
John Adams wrote in a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756), "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, `this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.'" He also wrote in a defense of the new Constitution, "It will never be pretended that any persons employed in the service of the government had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven...It will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses."
When James Madison, introduced the Bill of Rights at the First Federal Congress (June 8, 1789), he stated, "(The) civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner or on any pretext infringed." And in 1817, he stated, "The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles."
Benjamin Franklin wrote in his Autobiography, "Some books against Deism fell into my hands....It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations. In short, I soon became a thorough Deist." Franklin also wrote, "If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution."
Finally, in the Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11, which was written during the Administration of George Washington and signed into law by John Adams, the Treaty explicitly states, "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
Based upon these stated and strongly held beliefs, our founding fathers wrote into our Constitution, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." The Constitution makes absolutely no mention of "God," "In God We Trust," or the "Ten Commandments." But as early as 1831, the Christian church began to complain about the exclusion of Christianity from our federal Constitution. From his pulpit, the Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister, lamented, "The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels."
That's where we are. We have a secular Constitution, not a religious one. That is the law of the land. All are permitted to believe and worship as they wish, but the government shall not attempt to establish or influence one religious belief over another, nor shall any religion be permitted to dominate the government of the United States.
So be it.
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Floyd Johnson describes himself as a depression-born, unreconstructed FDR-Democrat. He moved to Phoenix from London in 1975 after residing several years in Brussels and London. He received a Masters Degree from Thunderbird - The Garvin School of International Management in Glendale, Arizona in 1981. After 35 years in the computer industry, he was a used and rare book seller in Peoria, Arizona until his retirement in 2002.
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